Pawcific Rim: Last Stand
by Lothar Hex
Summary: The Kaiju, created at the behest of Dawn Bellwether, are converging on the last city on Earth, Zootopia. The final Kaiju versus the final Jaegers. Time for the last stand.


Ten years. Ten long years since Dawn Bellwether had been imprisoned for terrorism, conspiracy, attempted murder and many other crimes. Most thought she should have been tried for crimes against mammal-kind, but they had no idea how right they would turn out to be. Somehow, from within the walls of Lion Heights Penitentiary, she spoke with co-conspirators and followers, discussing, planning, waiting.

In an effort to demonise predators and tear apart the ties that bound all mammals, she had actually brought them closer together. This was especially apparent in the case of Judy Hopps, and Nick Wilde, now Mr and Mrs Wilde-Hopps. Though interspecies, and even pred-prey relationships existed before them, they were always quietly ignored, if not outright hated, the taboo still too great for some mammals to understand. Something about the union of the rabbit and fox, their chemistry, charisma, and unbreakable bond spoke to the people of the city, and then the world. The taboo need not be, friendship and love could take any form and flourish. The mammals of the world, mostly, celebrated as those places with laws against the practice began, if not changing, to discuss the possibility of change. Others with no such laws embraced it.

This was the final straw for Bellwether, the day that Wilde and Hopps became one was the day her sympathisers unleashed their plan new solution to the predator-prey problem. If pred and prey would not tear themselves apart, a new super-predator would need to do it for them.

On the first month anniversary of their wedding, Judy and Nick Wilde-Hopps saw their first Kaiju.

A massive reptilian creature, artificially grown and engineered to survive in the harshest environments, and then doused with a new version of the Night Howler formula. The monster, later dubbed 'Trespasser' assaulted the city, destroying district after district, killing two thirds of the city's population in a matter of hours. Dawn Bellwether laughed from the relative safety of her prison cell as she heard the anguished cries of the populace. However, that laughter soon turned to screams of terror as Trespasser made its way to the prison.

No one survived. The ultimate predator destroying its caged prey.

The plans of Bellwether's co-conspirators became unravelled. They had thought they had perfected a form of pheromone control over the beast, but nothing could be further from the truth. All that did was attract the massive creature to the source, wiping out its creators in a case of dramatic irony. After this it's rampage continued unabated. The city's leadership was destroyed, causing chaos and panic in the failed evacuation attempt.

Then Chief Bogo of the ZPD took command. He organised the remnants of the military and ZPD into an effective fighting force, using the technology that created various weather controlled zones of the city to attack the creature. They created hail stones the sizes of boulders to pound Trespasser from the sky, while creating patches of ice large enough to cause the creature to stumble and fall, then the sand from Sahara Square to blast it with sand storms, striping the armoured skin bare. Finally, in a last desperate act, they lured the creature to one of the few function hydroelectric power plants. Using makeshift ballista's hurriedly created for the purpose, they shot steel beams with wires connected to the plant's main dynamos. Seconds later, the entire power grid of Zootopia was used to electrocute the creature to death, its anguished cries echoing for miles.

Finally, the creature lay dead. But there was no celebration to be had as the remaining citizens dug through the carnage, bodies by the thousands found under buildings and in subways. Though many were killed in the frantic stampede to escape, even those could be blamed on the creature.

Nick found his mother inside Finnick's crushed van, the fennec's final act of bravery a suicidal attempt to save his best friend's only remaining family. Their bodies had been smashed together in such an unrecognisable mess, a joint funeral was held with a single casket.

As the city mourned, they left the giant form of Trespasser to rot, having no way to move it, the remaining infrastructure being used to care for its citizen's as aid came from around the world. The city was wounded, but not irreparably as work under the leadership of now Commander-in-Chief Bogo began.

Unfortunately, the hope brought with rebuilding would not last.

Mere days after it's death, the corpse of Trespasser began expelling objects into the sky, on inspection the scientists of Zootopia found they were spores.

The corpse was reproducing.

There was no escape from the onslaught for many mammals. As the spores landed in various parts of the world carried by air currents and tides, they landed and grew. Within hours of landing, the spores created eggs that hatched into smaller Kaiju. They all started off as smaller copies of Trespasser, but within weeks of hatching they had adapted to the environments around them, creating a multitude of creatures with abilities so varied, no single strategy would work for all of them.

One of these spores landed in Bunnyburrow, unleashing the creature Meathead, a large bull-like Kaiju who used its immense strength to ravage the farmlands of its victims, including the birthplace of Judy Hopps. Her entire family aside from herself had gathered together in their warren out of fear, and it was their end.

Now Nick and Judy had only each other and the remnants of the ZPD left, the shared grief bringing them even closer together than either thought possible.

Kaiju sightings became more and more frequent, and while many were cut down before they could grow to full size, within a year they began overrunning the planet's greatest cities. Entire continents were being wiped out. There was hope however, as when the small version of these new Kaiju died, it was discovered that none of them had the same ability to reproduce as their parent. The belief became that if they simply kill the creatures quickly enough, mammalian civilization would survive. But as the Kaiju increased in size, so did their power. As shown by the original attack on Zootopia, conventional weaponry was not effective against them, the traditional militaries of the world destroyed a good amount of the immature monsters, but they were totally outclassed by the larger evolved versions. Society began to crumble, mammals either fleeing the cities to try and be spared the wrath of the Kaiju for a little longer, or simply staying and waiting for the inevitable.

But then, hope was reignited by Zootopia, the very city that was the first causality of the Kaiju War. Inspired by thoughts of revenge for their fallen, the scientists and engineers of the city began work on their own monsters. Monsters of metal and hydraulics. The Jaegers. A marvel of engineering, each Jaeger stood hundreds of feet tall, able to stare even the biggest Kaiju in the face and rage defiance. Though first piloted remotely, this proved ineffective against the beasts, the actions demanded of them happening slower than could be useful against the Kaiju. A major breakthrough occurred when neuroscientist Honey Badger discovered a way to link the Jaeger's movements directly to their pilot's brains, allowing the two to move as one, drifting from movement to movement like a living being. This "drift" as it became known, had one flaw, it was too much mental strain on one pilot, often killing them before they could be deployed. However, further experimentation found that if two or more pilots worked together, acting like the left and right hemispheres of the Jaeger's brain, it allowed the Jaeger's to work as intended. The one snag was that the pilots had to be mentally in synch with each other, know each other well enough to be able to work with little to no conflict. Outfitted with customised weaponry for a variety of missions, the Jaegers were ready for war.

Pilots started volunteering for compatibility testing. No one was surprised that one of the first teams to submit themselves for the program, and one of the very first successes, was Nick and Judy Wilde-Hopps. In fact, so sure was Commander in Chief Bogo in that fact he commissioned a Jaeger designed just for them, Hybrid Vanguard. The mech was a mix of rabbit and fox attributes, powerful hind legs, claws, a long tail, rabbit ears and a vulpine muzzle. Each part of it designed for maximum Kaiju killing efficiency. The very first time they took it in to combat they fought with a joint purpose and grace unlike anything most had seen. Both crying for vengeance for their lost families, they literally tore their first Kaiju in half from stem to stern. Once again the heroes of Zootopia brought hope. As time went on, they became successful in killing fifteen Kaiju solo, and provided support for another six deaths.

They weren't the only successful pair though. Surprising everyone, Judy's neighbours and friends Bucky and Pronk Oryx-Antlerson fought like they were possed, channelling their… _passion_ for each other in to combat. Their Jaeger, Antlered Dustup, became famous for impaling Kaiju after Kaiju on its pneumatic antlers, destroying nine of the beasts in solo combat. Then there was the pure unstoppable power of the McHorn siblings, Zuberi and Ashanti. Simply put, the brother and sister literally flattened most of their foes with sheer brute force, their slow moving but powerful Jaeger, Savannah Crackdown, taking blows that would have disabled most others, while hitting back twice as hard. It had ten kaiju to its name.

Soon these Jaegers and dozens of others were deployed all around the world from the massive Jaeger base of Zootopia, named the Shatterdome, all around the world, ready to defend mammal-kind from extinction. Despite this, it was not a one-sided fight. Every Jaeger out there had to take down at least three Kaiju to have a chance at survival, and some didn't even manage one. The war became one of attrition, Jaegers and Kaiju trading blows doing their level best to destroy each other. As the war ground on, the toxic blood of the Kaiju took arable land away from the hungry, and resources from the builders and engineers making it harder and harder to put up a defence. Yet while the factories struggled to rebuild and re-arm their mechanised saviours, the Kaiju could not reproduce to replace their losses. Every Kaiju that died gave more credence to the hope that Judgement Day would be stopped.

Ten years on, it has come to this, one final battle. Zootopia stands as the last city on Earth, the last hope for civilisation, and the final three Kaiju are converging on it. Knifehead, a cunning, agile and vicious fighter. Though smaller than the others, it has taken down eight Jaegers with minimal damage. Otachi, an acid spewing monstrosity that with a speed that left other Kaiju in the dust. It has five Jaeger's to its name. Finally, the brutish Leatherback, a hulking great beast possessed of a strength few Kaiju can attest to and destroyer of six Jaegers.

Against them stand the final three Jaegers, Hybrid Vanguard, Antlered Dustup, and Savanah Crackdown. Maintenance crews work around the clock to attend to repairs and get them ready for the fight that will determine the fate of the planet.

Three Kaiju, three Jaegers. Seems like an even fight.

It's time to cancel the apocalypse.

It's time for the last stand.

Edit 25/5/2017: I THOUGHT OF AN OBVIOUS PUN NAME YAY! The story is now Pawcific Rim: Last Stand.


End file.
